XAMINA TION " T HE doctor will be here very soon," the nurse-receptionist " d " 1 . f " " sal. n Just a ew mInutes. Wayne looked at his wristwatch, which showed twenty-eight minutes after seven. "But he told me on the phone yesterday-he said seven-thirty " "I know." The receptionist smiled peculiarly and for a moment Wayne thought she was going to scream. Then he saw that her smile was intended to cover a yawn. "Dr. Manck called me a little while ago and said he knew about the appointment with you. He didn't forget, but he got delayed. He asked you to please wait. He won't be very late, he said." The smile won out over the yawn and she looked more cheerful as she blinked away a faint film of tears. "Will you have a seat, please?" "Thanks. " Wayne stepped out of the small foyer, in which her desk stood, into the empty waiting room and sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs. As soon as he took the weight off his feet he felt the tiredness in his knees that told him he had been up too late the night before. The receptionist picked up her fountain pen and dipped her head into the circle of yellow light from the desk lamp. She suppressed a new yawn delicately, with her fingertips against her lips. Wayne caught the yawn from her. He turned in the chair to look out the window at the early-morning grayness of Seventy- third Street and the small wedge of Central Park visible at the end of the block. Then he turned back to the room, glanced at the prints on the walls, and picked up a magazine from the small table near his elbow. The receptionist rose from her chair, but Wayne reached up over his head and switched on the lamp himself. The receptionist smiled as she sank back and he smiled, too. "I guess I ought to apologize," he said, "making you come down to the office so early." "That's all right, Mr. Wade. I come-" "\Vayne." " 1 ' ' N ' ? " m sorry" , e . "That's right." "Mr. lVayne. I come in early like this quite often. Dr. Manck has a great many patients with important govern- ment jobs-war positions, you know. They're always going down to \Vash- ington these days or rushing off to catch planes and things, so they have to come early. " "Really?" \Vayne said, losing part of the feeling of importance the early- morning appointment had given him. He glanced at his wristwatch again: twenty-five minutes to eight. "How prompt a man is Dr. Manck?" " Oh h ' " h , e s very prompt, t e recep- tionist said. She looked down at her wristwatch. "A few minutes perhaps this morning, but no more." Wayne nodded and opened the magazine. His regular doctor, Harry Holdridge, was a friend of his. Har- ry would have seen him in the evening or on Sunday, when Wayne wasn't so rushed for time. Or he might even have filled in the form and signed it without going through the formality of a physi- cal examination. They had been friends since childhood and he knew that Wayne was in excellent physical shape. But Harry was somewhere in the Pacific now. He had a commission in the Navy, and Wayne had made this appointment with Dr.. Manck, whom he had never seen, because Harry Holdridge had turned his practice over to Dr. Manck when he left. As Wayne read, he kept touching the top of his head, where the hair was getting thin. "That window bothering you?" the receptionist said. "If it's a draft I could close it." Wayne glanced up from the maga- zine. "What?" He saw the receptionist looking at the window beside his chair. 1.M ,::,::::::::;:'::::::; ':: ' 19 It was raised two or three inches. "Oh," he said, "no. No, thanks." He dropped his hand hastily from the top of his head. "It's perfectly all right." "I always like to open it a little in the morning. It's so sort of stuffy when you come in early like this." " s " w . d I k " h . ure, ayne sal , 00 Ing at IS wristwatch pointedly. It was now a quarter to eight. He was due at the Army Air Forces Intelligence office at nine. Unless Dr. Manck showed up soon, there wouldn't be enough tin1e for a physical examination, he'd have to leave, and the whole point of this early- morning appointment would be wasted. "The window doesn't bother me. But I , . d b " m worrle a out- "He'll be here any l11inute now," the receptionist said. "Dr. Manck is very " prompt. A T eight o'clock the door opened with a bang, and a tall young man in a shapeless blue overcoat came in. "Hi, Miss Perrin," he said cheerfully. He took off the coat, tossed his hat onto her desk, and looked across her shoulder at the mail in front of her, all in a single complicated whirl of activity. "What's new? " "Good morning, Dr. Manck," she said, and then, nodding toward the . " " M W . h " waItIng room, r. ayne IS ere. Dr. Manck grinned and beckoned to Wayne with his hand. "Sorry to keep you waiting, \Vayne. 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